Time Spent (20 page)

Kevin vanished, taking Simon and
the others with him.

______________________

"She's killing us." Simon turned to Heather,
ignoring her accusation that he had left her. There was no time for
recriminations. Not now. "On the rooftop, you said 'she's killing
us'. Who were you talking about?"

Heather blinked. "I'm not sure. I can't see
it now, but when I touched you, and took your power, I saw
something."

Simon nodded. "I get visions, of the future
I think. On the school bus, I saw men operating on me. I thought I
was seeing what had happened to us all, but it happened later, here
on this base."

"What I saw happened here too, I think. We
were all here, and so was this woman, this glowing, red woman."

"And she was killing us."

Heather nodded.

"Who was she?"

"I don't know."

Simon closed his eyes. "I keep thinking, if
I have this power, this power to see the future, I should be able
to use it. But it's hard." He concentrated. "The future
is...slippery. I get flashes, but that's all."

"Always in motion is the future," Brandon
said. "The truth is, even flashes would help us at this point."

Heather put a hand on his shoulder.
"Try."

Simon. "Okay."

The dungeon, the stone walls, the
chains.

"I see...a dungeon. It's dark. I'm chained
to the wall."

Prisoners, chained to the walls. Heavy,
metal chains, impossible to break.

"There are others here. I'm trying to break
free, but I can't."

Torchlight in the darkness.

"Someone's coming. Someone's coming from
outside the cells."

The torchlight approaches, a key turns in
the lock.

"They're opening the door."

A woman's face illuminated in the
torchlight.

"It's a woman, the person in the door.
There's guards holding torches, but I can see her face..." He
turned. "It's you!"

Becca's mouth dropped. "What? ME??"

"It's you." Simon tried to hold the image in
his mind, but it slipped away. The future always slipped away. "It
was you, the guards brought you into the cell, they opened the door
for you."

Becca snorted. "You have officially lost
your fucking mind!"

Simon bared his teeth in a snarl. "I know
what I saw!"

Brandon stood between them. "Okay, we'll
figure this out later. What does this have to do with the red
woman?"

Simon shook his head. "Nothing. I didn't see
her."

"Try focusing on her. See if that helps."
Brandon put a hand on his shoulder. "You can do it."

Simon closed his eyes and concentrated.
The red woman.

Red hair streaming behind her. Glowing red
eyes.

"I see her!"

Red dress floating around her. Ruby red
lips. Energy surrounding her, glowing like starlight.

"She's not human. She's...something
else."

"Something
not of this world
,"
Brandon said.

Simon nodded.

"What else do you see?"

There were others, glowing in the vastness
of space.

"She's not the only one. She's the leader,
but there are others."

They appeared, shining like stars at night.
First dozens, then hundreds, then...

"So many I can't count them all..."

One kneeled at her feet.

"Wait, there's someone there, kneeling in
front of her."

This one did not glow like the others. This
one, the one who kneeled before her, was human. She laid a hand on
his blond hair, smiling fondly.

Simon opened his eyes. "Him."

The others followed his outstretched hand
and finger, pointing directly at...

"Zachary?" Becca's face wore a distinct look
of disbelief.

"He knows something."

Zachary remained on the floor, rocking back
and forth, his lips soundless mouthing the same words over and
over.

"I don't know, man," Brandon said. "Zachary
has seriously left the building. Even if he does know something, I
doubt he can tell us what it is."

Simon leapt across the room, picking Zachary
up off the floor and holding him against the wall. He leaned his
leathery black face in until it was almost touching Zachary, the
gusts of breath through the hole of his nose ruffling Zachary's
blond hair.

"Who is she?" Simon tightened his grip on
Zachary's arms.

"Leave him alone," Becca said. "That's not
going to help anything."

With a glance back, Simon reached out
invisible hands to wrap around Becca. One gripped her legs, a
second her chest, and finally one clamped itself firmly over her
mouth.

"I've had enough of you," Simon growled. "No
more mind tricks. I saw you in that dungeon. You try to control me,
and I crush you." He turned back to Zachary. "Who is she?"

Zachary stopped mouthing the words. His eyes
slowly moved to meet Simon's, but he continued to tremble in
silence.

Simon pulled him away from the wall and
slammed him into it, hard. "WHO IS SHE?"

"She's..." Zachary's voice hitched.

"WHO?"

"SHE'S THE DEVIL!" Zachary shouted, cowering
in Simon's grasp.

Mia gasped. Becca pursed her lips. Brandon
shook his head. Tyler leaned against the wall and stared at the
ceiling, or possibly into and past it.

Simon released him, and Zachary sank to the
floor, his eyes wide.

"She's the Devil..."

CHAPTER EIGHT

Vernon Wells glanced up from his Bible when
the doorbell rang. He wasn't expecting anyone. Carefully tucking
the red ribbon into the text to mark where he had paused, his
finger lingered over the words "let them be caught in their pride"
before he closed the book.

He stood and placed the careworn Bible
carefully on the table next to his chair. His home was small and
spartan. There were only a few chairs and one table; he owned no
television, no radio, nothing that might distract him from the
Word.

Vernon opened the door to find no one there.
He peered around, then down, and saw that a basket had been left
for him. He looked back up, gazing down the street but not seeing
anyone who might have left the basket.

A cry emerged from the blankets within the
basket beneath him.

Vernon knelt, carefully lifting the blanket
to reveal the crying baby within, a beautiful boy with blue eyes
and a tuft of blond hair growing from the top of his head. An
envelope had been pinned to his blanket, and on the top of the
envelope were written these words:

MY NAME IS ZACHARY

"Well, hello there, Zachary." Vernon opened
the envelope and found a note within.

The note read:

VERNON,

HE IS YOUR CHILD. PLEASE CARE FOR HIM.

Vernon reached into the basket and lifted
Zachary into his arms, standing.

"Aww, don't cry, Zachary," he cooed to the
boy, cupping the tiny head with his left hand. "Don't cry. You're
my boy, aren't you?" He kissed Zachary on the head, and Zachary's
cries stopped, replaced by a serene look in his blue eyes.

"That's right. You're my special boy."

______________________

The heavy metal door to the incinerator
banged open, and Zachary rolled out. He coughed, the ashes of his
clothes falling away from him. He was naked, alone, and very
afraid.

"Where am I?" he asked. Once again, he had
no memory since the crash, since his talk with God. "God, please
help me. Please."

He fumbled along the wall until he found a
light switch. He was in a small room, with a door on one wall.
Passing through that door, he found himself in a cavernous
warehouse, lit by fluorescent bulbs from high above. At one end of
the warehouse were three school buses. One of them was the one
Zachary had been on when it crashed. It still bore the damage from
the collision with the bridge railing, as well as from the river
itself. The other two? Zachary wasn't sure, but they all were
emblazoned with the same number: 313.

In front of the second and third bus were
lines of tables. Cadavers lay on each table, covered with
sheets.

Zachary walked to the first table and
lifted. The body was that of a very large man.

"Be brave," Zachary said. "I have to be
brave."

He pulled the sheet away, throwing it aside,
and laid his hands on the body. A warm glow passed through his
hands and into the man.

The sheet yanked the toe tag attached to the
corpse free. It fluttered to the ground. There was a name written
on it, in blockish letters: KENNEY, BROCK.

The enormous body twitched.

"Let Becca go. Now." Tyler stepped toward
Simon, a menacing look in his eye.

Heather moved between them. With a touch of
the table leg, her body shifted to metal instantly. "Or what?"

"Guys," Brandon said. "Stop this!"

Tyler turned his gaze on Heather. A wrinkle
formed in his brow as he concentrated on her. Heather's body
shifted, and her natural human form returned, starting in the
center and spreading outward.

Heather stumbled backward. "How the hell did
you do that?"

Simon leaped at Tyler, but Max appeared
before him, barking loudly. Simon stopped, unfamiliar with Max's
abilities or what the dog might do.

"STOP IT!" Mia cried. She brought up a fist,
glowing with yellow energy, and started to bring it down against
the table, but paused. She wavered unsteadily on her feet, and
sagged backward against the wall.

No one noticed General Stearnes slipping
toward the door.

"Mia, what's wrong?" Brandon moved to help
her but she swatted his hands away.

"Leave me alone! I'm fine!"

"You're not fine." He turned to Zachary.
"You have to help her."

"I can't," Zachary said.

Stearnes whipped open the door. "INTRUDERS!"
he shouted. "SECURITY!"

"Damn it!" Simon turned in the direction of
the General. Invisible hands pulled the General away from the door
and slammed it.

"Just let Becca go!" Tyler said.

Becca, who had been suspended just above the
floor, wrapped up by the invisible hands, suddenly dropped to her
feet. She sucked in air. Tyler reached out to keep her from falling
to the floor.

"I'm fine," she said. "It's okay, I got
this."

"Got what?" Tyler asked.

The general walked serenely back to the
corner where he and General Higgins had been cowering and sat on
the floor.

"Him. Them. All of them. They won't remember
anything."

"The whole base?" Tyler raised an eyebrow.
"At once? You can do that?"

YYES I CANN

"I'm not done with you," Simon said. "I saw
you in that dungeon."

Becca turned her green eyes on him.
YYOU
ARE DONE. FUCKING DROP ITT

"Hey!" Brandon was trying to hold Mia up but
she was sinking to the floor. "All of you knock it off! Something's
wrong with Mia!" The circuitry had spread. It covered nearly her
entire face.

"Do something!" Tyler said to Zachary.

"I can't," Zachary said, shaking his head.
"God...God has abandoned me..."

______________________

Zachary wasn't sure what to think when the
wind began to hammer at him. It was howling around the rooftop, and
an angry black cloud dominated the sky above.

The others were there too, and there were
sparks jumping between them, like the ends of jumper cables when
you touched them together.

A spark leapt to Zachary, hitting him square
in the chest.

Lines of energy arced between them now, and
then arced into the air above the rooftop. And where they came
together, the sky darkened. A shimmering hole began to form in the
air. A sound rose, like the sound of cracks opening in ice, only a
million times louder.

"Be brave," Zachary told himself.

______________________

"Zachary, your father's here for you."

Zachary turned to see his father standing
just inside the classroom door. He picked up his papers from the
small table, and stood. The teacher, Miss Shannon, smiled down on
him as he walked past her to stand with his father.

"Hello, boy." Vernon Wells said, placing a
hand on his head. "What do you have there?"

"Would you like to show your father what you
made today?" Miss Shannon asked.

Zachary nodded. He handed the pages up to
Vernon. Vernon studied them, leafing between them and taking time
to ponder each one.

"They're really very good for his age," Miss
Shannon said. "Zachary's obviously got quite a creative
talent."

"My boy is very special," said Vernon
softly. The drawing he was studying was of a cross, hovering in the
sky and shining down on figures that looked very much like Vernon
and Zachary themselves. "Very special."

"He still hasn't...." Her voice trailed away
but Vernon knew what she was asking, what everyone always
asked.

Vernon handed the pictures back to Zachary
and faced her. She was small, even by his standards, and Vernon was
not a large man. Her brown hair was pulled back in a clip and she
was dressed modestly, in a sweater and slacks. Vernon approved.

"No," he said. "He hasn't spoken...yet."

"I can recommend the name of a specialist in
autism. You should take Zachary to see her. She's very good. It's
just...we aren't really equipped here to deal with students who
have...special needs."

Vernon raised a hand, cutting her off.
"Zachary, you know what you need to do with those, don't you
boy?"

Zachary looked down at his feet.

Vernon handed the drawings back to him. "You
be good, now."

Zachary walked back to the table and sat. He
lay the drawings down on the table, lifting the first one. It took
most of his child's strength, but he gradually tore the drawing in
half, top to bottom, laying the two halves aside. He then moved to
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